Los Angeles — There are post-election fears in Los Angeles of deportation are high among the estimated 1.3 million documented and undocumented immigrants living in the city.
A workshop hosted by LA-based immigrant advocacy group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, teaches clients about their rights when confronted by federal officials.
“I expect that Donald Trump, as president in his second term, will double down on the brutality,” the group’s executive director, Angelica Salas, told CBS News.
The plan of newly elected President Donald Trump deport Undocumented migrants by millions was a key plank of his presidential campaign, with Trump often boasting that it would be the largest such effort in US history.
Since obtaining a second term, he tagged Tom Homan as a so-called ‘border czar’ to lead the process. Homan served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term. Trump even indicated he could try to use the army to help carry out deportations.
The Los Angeles City Council earlier this month voted 13-0 in favor of approval an ordinance declaring itself a sanctuary city, in defiance of Trump’s plan.
LA City Council Member Eunisses Hernandez sponsored the measure.
“We cannot use city resources … to enforce federal immigration law,” Hernandez said. “We cannot use any of our employees to enforce federal immigration law or their time. So that means we will not do the work of federal immigration authorities and agencies to separate families.”
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LA’s action mirrors that of California, which has been a sanctuary state since 2018. Nationally, there are more than 600 refuges, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
However, the new government appears undeterred.
“I’m sending a message to the people who say they’re going to get in our way,” Homan said this week. “They’re going to stop us from doing what we’re doing, a domestic enforcement operation. I’ve said a hundred times in the last week, don’t cross that line…don’t test us.”
Hernandez says LA officials are taking Trump’s statements seriously.
“It would be foolish to underestimate him and not believe his rhetoric,” Hernandez said. “And that’s why we’re trying to prepare rather than be caught off guard.”
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump is considering punishing sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding from states and municipalities that do not cooperate with the deportation plan.
“We also often think that it only targets undocumented people, but in most families it is a mixed-status family,” Hernandez said. “So the pain affects not only the undocumented person, but their entire family.”
Andrés Gutierrez
